Rhapsody in Grey
by The Sugarfaerie
Summary: All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players, so prison is little different. You can take the girl out of the Jazz Age, but you can't take the Jazz Age out of the girl. A collection of stories from Cook County Jail. Somewhat slashy.
1. Prologue

I wanted to call this 'What Happens When Sugarfaerie Daydreams During Lectures', but it wouldn't fit. ;) This is a collection of little ideas I've had in my head for ages. The title is a tribute to Gerschwin's _Rhapsody in Blue, _which is, in my opinion, a masterpiece. The story is basically a series of linked snippets from prison life, involving all sorts of characters.

Rhapsody In Grey 

It was raining when they brought her in, the first murderess of Cook County Jail. She was pretty enough, then, with blood staining her dress and wild eyes that grew wilder with every drink. Fierce, match-girl Liz. The whispers started as soon as Mama led her down the row.

Magda, a prostitute with a cigarette permanently attached to her lower lip, sniggered as Liz walked by. Liz, dropping the matches she carried even then, launched herself at the other prisoner, hands grabbing madly between the bars. She gained a hold on Magda's collar and twisted, ready to choke her. She fought like a demon; it had taken five policemen to arrest her and there was no way in hell she would let anyone forget that. Mama, laughing appreciatively, grabbed Liz's bony shoulders and managed to pull her away. "Wildcat, this one!" Mama chuckled to the other guards as she locked Liz into a cell. "You'll be trouble, girl."

Liz pressed her face between the cell bars and said nothing, a matchbox between her hands. She'd been called trouble before.

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Annie came next, angry, proud, beautiful. She faced her jail-mates as she did everything else, with her head held as high as she could manage, tossing her flaming curls if someone stared. _Let them look._ She called attention to herself immediately, by trying to smuggle in a few twists of cocaine. The nurse who confiscated them gave her a look that was halfway through exasperation and pity. "You do know that this stuff can kill you, right?" Annie tossed her head again. The truth was that she hardly ever used cocaine, but Ezekiel had kept it in his desk drawer and she wanted to see just how much she could get away with. Boundaries were there to be pushed.

Mama led her up the stairs to Murderess Row and Annie put up no resistance, practically marching herself into her cell. She had nothing to be afraid of, not really. Annie could survive anywhere. She'd always been good at that.

"Hey, Liz," Mama shouted as they passed one of the cells. "Looks like you've got company."

A slender girl moved behind the bars, a cigarette glowing in her fingers. She raised her head slightly and gave a smoky chuckle.

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June had been in prison for barely a day before she met the other murderesses. White girls, both of them, a brunette and a redhead with jail-hardened sneers, but they seemed to have a grudging respect for her. "Hey," the redhead offered lazily, her eyes narrowed through the smoke issuing from her mouth. Sweaty curls clung to her forehead. "Who'd you kill to end up in this dump?"

"Husband," June answered, shrugging. "Didn't like him callin' me a slut."

The other murderess sniggered, striking matches with inhuman speed. Her foot tapped crazily against the concrete, as if to a tune that only she could hear. It was slightly unnerving, like sitting next to a hand grenade with a very loose pin. "I shot my boyfriend," the girl said gruffly, giving June a lopsided half-smile. "He kept poppin' his gum, y'know. Christ, it pissed me off."

June raised her eyebrows. "Really."

The redhead pushed some curls out of her face. "Don't get on her bad side," she stage-whispered. "I'm Annie," she continued, returning to normal volume. "That's _Annie, _not anything else, y'hear? Call me Ann or Anna and I'll break your face. Same goes for Liz over there, don't call her Elizabeth if y'know what's good for you. And what do we call you, then?"

"Just June." June lit a cigarette, settling into her chair. "Yeah, I'm just June."

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Katalin didn't understand until she saw the bars. She tried to explain even then, but the guards only laughed and said they'd heard it all before, albeit not in Hungarian. They walked her past murderesses, _real _murderesses, and locked her in a world of grey. Smudges of colour, when they came, were so bright they stung her eyes.

She didn't cry. She could never cry again.

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She regretted nothing but being caught. Charlie and Veronica were barely cold when they got her, the famous Velma Kelly, flapper extraordinaire. The matron took to her at once, calling her sweetheart and baby even before they stripped off her beaded dress. Well, if that was what it took to get ahead around here, so be it. Modesty was never one of her attributes, it being in her mind a highly overrated virtue.

Girls, no more than shadows, watched her as she marched along the walkway. Their eyes glittered in the darkened cells like costume jewels in a smoky speakeasy. Long, bony fingers clutched the chilly bars while whispers rushed behind her. "That's Velma Kelly," they said. "_Velma fuckin' Kelly!_"

Mama clashed her truncheon against the cells and a blonde girl gave a shrill squeak. Velma Kelly had arrived.

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Mona was the last murderess to arrive, at least until that skinny scrap of a Roxie Hart was brought in. She came in at lunch, which was unusual as most murders happened at night. This gave her a chance to establish a very important thing: never get between a prisoner and her food.

She sat at the table without any food, as she hadn't been assigned a plate yet. The prisoners talked among themselves, casting her the occasional suspicious or curious glance. Hunger clawed at her stomach and a dark-skinned inmate, seeming to guess it, placed a protective arm between Mona and her lunch. There was no way Mona was getting any of her potato soup.

Mona stared ahead, wanting the others to stop looking. The girl opposite her hardly ate at all, but still fixed Mona with a warning scowl. She tossed a matchbox on the tabletop and exchanged a look with the redhead next to her. Mona, feeling intimidated by their gaze, dropped her eyes and studied her fingernails instead. They were already dirty.

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Roxie brought their number up to seven, destroying the nice, even title of the Six Merry Murderesses. They weren't particularly accommodating to newcomers, this lot, and the first words Roxie ever heard from another inmate were on this unwelcome disruption to their hierarchy. "I don't like it," said a coffee-skinned girl Roxie would later know as Mona. "We're gonna be the Seven Merry Murderesses now. It don't sound the same."

"Oh, shut the fuck up, Mona." _That _would be June.

"Yeah," another girl added. Roxie paused in the yard, trying to match the voice to the face. "Ya new, anyway, Mona, what the hell would ya know 'bout it." The girl giggled at her own wit.

Roxie tried to listen harder when a different voice startled her. "Hey, Blondie, over here!" The voice belonged to a red-haired girl Mama had slipped cigarettes to the day before.

"Why?" Roxie called back, suspicious.

The girl laughed, flicking cigarette smoke at another inmate. "We wanna know your story," she said simply. "Then we'll tell you ours."


	2. Set the Scene

New chapter! This isn't as fragmented as the last one, I hope. Louise Brooks and Greta Garbo, who I mention here, were film sirens of the twenties who really were rumoured to have had a one-night stand. Louise Brooks later confirmed it to be true.

Disclaimer (forgot it last time): I own nothing.

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"Nah, ya so wrong."

"Am not. If Louise Brooks really had a one-night stand with Greta Garbo, there's no way Charlie Chaplin would've been there."

_God, they're at it again, _Roxie observed as she passed the card table. It was all the other murderesses ever talked about: violence, food, sex and the lack thereof. The gossip about this celebrity or that film star was usually a few months old, jail not being the best place to keep up with current events, but this particular talk sounded interesting all the same.

"Besides," Annie was saying, holding her cards in one hand and _Harper's Bazaar _in the other, "think 'bout it. You've got Louise Brooks and _Greta Garbo. _Who needs a man if you've got them?"

Liz gave a trademark cackle and glanced at the cards Annie had just dealt her. "Huh. I could fuckin' use anyone right 'bout now. Y'know it's been almos' three years since I killed Bernie?"

"Meanin' three years since ya got any," Velma jumped in, quick-witted as ever.

June viciously stabbed her cigarette into the ashtray, staring at the tabletop. Roxie backed away a little as June had always scared her.

Annie, probably the most sociable inmate on Murderess Row, flicked a card face up on the table and stole June's lighter from the other girl's dress pocket. June grimaced, but said nothing. According to rumours, Annie had a deadly right swing. "So…" she continued, fluffing out her curls with revealing grace. "What do y'all miss most 'bout the real world?"

Velma sniffed, resting one well-turned leg on the table. Out of all the inmates, Velma was the only one with no runs in her stockings, which everyone agreed was beyond irritating. "I miss," Velma began, playing a card. Liz examined the card and hissed. "I miss," Velma went on pointedly, slapping Liz's hand away, "booze. Real booze, not the trash Mama brings in here. Champagne. Someone once named a cocktail after me, y'know. The 'Kelly'."

Annie nodded as if considering the answer. "June?"

June fixed her eyes on the table. "Good food that don't taste like someone already bin eatin' it."

Velma laughed humourlessly and Annie turned to Liz with a sly smile. "C'mon, Liz," she taunted. "Y'gotta miss something. Truth, now."

Liz shrugged, managing to make even such a casual action threatening. "Dunno. I miss…" she trailed off, striking a match against the cold brick wall. The inmate stared into the flame, one side of her mouth curling into that crazy smirk of hers. "I don' miss nothin'."

Velma scoffed. "Like hell. Ya expect us t'believe that?" She lit a cigarette and leant back in her chair, ready for the fireworks.

Liz twitched, her lips pressed into a tight line. "Whatever. I got nothin' to miss, an' that's the truth. Do what ya like with it."


	3. Solo Act

New chapter, guys! Fun, fun.

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There was something about loneliness, Velma realised. You could ignore it during the day, talking to people who passed for friends, reading magazines, pretending to be interested in yet another story. You could argue, laugh, steal a drink here or there. You might even pretend you were happy.

All that went away at night.

At night there were no magazines, no drinks, no casual acquaintances ready to be forgotten when or if she ever got out of jail. There was just Velma Kelly, in her prison smock and stockings, huddled on her bed, alone. She hadn't been alone in a good, long while.

Not that she regretted killing Charlie. It wasn't as if she missed him, oh no, Velma Kelly never regretted her actions. The night just felt so… empty, suddenly. Even though they'd argued about room, even though he stole her blankets and didn't give them back until she battered him with a pillow; waking up beside someone was, well, nice. It made her feel like she would never be lonely.

Not now.

Velma pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders, listening to the noises of the prison around her. A prison was never silent, not even at this ungodly hour. She listened every night, until the sounds were forever tattooed onto her memory. Drops falling from a leaky tap. Footfalls and yawns from drowsy nightwatchmen. The sighs and heavy breathing of the inmates.

She rolled onto her back, deciding to give up on sleep for the moment. The blanket was rough and raggedy, not at all like the heavy quilt at her last hotel. Cicero. Velma made a mental note to bargain a better blanket from Mama.

Someone on the row coughed and Velma turned her head, trying to identify the girls from the night-time sounds. The person tossing in their bed would be either Liz or Mona; both of them were notoriously restless sleepers. Those snuffles and coughs were probably June; she'd developed a cold that week. Annie's unmistakable voice rang out into the uneasy quiet, yelling at June to shut up. Velma chuckled; it was so typical of Annie. Another voice, gruff and sleepy, shouted something incomprehensible in return. That would have to be either Liz or June, Velma decided. No, it was definitely Liz; June's voice was lower.

A guard hissed a command at both of them, Annie tittered and they fell silent once more. A girl was whimpering a few cells down, and Velma wondered who it was. The Hunyak, maybe, or that new girl. What was her name again? Roxie?

She sighed. Twisted. An empty bed. A single spotlight. Solo act. This was her goddamn solo act, with no one to watch her or even care that she was all alone.

Funny, that.


End file.
